When the going is slow - or adventures with my trusty stool

My trusty stool

For reasons I won't go into right now, I've not been walking much recently and when I have it's been slow going and not very far reaching. Some may see this as a problem, but it has opened up a whole layer of depth to the natural world that I never thought I'd see.

I remember an episode of the BBCs Coast where Nick Crane explain the fractal nature of measuring the coast line. If you measured a part of the coast with a 2m ruler then you would get a measurement, but if you measured with a 50cm ruler then you would have a measurement much larger than the measurement with the 2m ruler. This is because the smaller ruler allows you to be more specific with your measurements and therefore you can get closer and measure more of the coast. This is what I'm seeing now in the natural world.

I used to walk around the countryside at a fair pace and would be excited to see a particular bird or deer, but that's it, I'd just carry on and feel jolly proud of myself for being so observant. These days I go out with my camera and my trusty stool (not forgetting my lovely, and much better, other half). When I get tired or achy I just sit down and allow some time to go by, allow myself to be in nature and try to be of nature. My trusty stool also comes in handy when wanting to spend time photographing some plants or when wanting to sit by a river or when gardening. It allows me to take my time, to enjoy it and not want to move on or rush because I'm tired or aching.

My current lack of speed allows me to see the smaller things in life, or those that live at high speed. Just being slow is like an indicator to wildlife that you're no threat and will take a moment to investigate. This has helped me get photographs of stoats and bank voles, not to mention photos of various birds that I may have not previously been patient enough to wait for, or to be honest observant enough to hear or see!

We all enjoy different things from our time in nature, and we enjoy different things at different times. Nature has a fractal property, the closer you get the more there is to see. Life goes fast enough when standing still, don't feel that you always need to rush along with it.